Ashes in the Breeze
by Lemonbreeze
Summary: Random musings of a Bhaalspawn fresh out of the dungeon.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This isn't a full story by any means, just a few random segments running through my mind when taking a break from Rain and Lightning. They aren't even worthy of one-shot status, really, and of dubious entertainment value. May be updated if inspiration strikes again, but really, it's just a side project and an outlet for random ideas that don't fit in with R&L. Rated M because I swear like a sailor. _

* * *

"So," I said dully.

"So?" the olive-skinned man next to me asked blithely, raising one eyebrow at me under his hood.

I wanted to reply, but I didn't have the strength for more words. My body and mind had been through too much punishment, and my battery had been running solely on fear and anger for much of the last day. Now that I was finding myself in relative safety for the first time in a very, very long time, my body had decided that it was time to shut down.

"You know," I finally forced out, "a lot of really bad shit just happened to me, and I'd appreciate it if you were a little less fucking cheerful."

Yes, that seemed just about the appropriate thing to say to the man I was expecting not to molest me while I slept. He seemed to take my words to heart, however, and molded his shadowed face into a frown.

"You're a good friend," I told him.

We'd known each other for, what, a day? Granted, it had been a day full of really bad shit, but still, only a single day. Then again, he was sort of my best friend by default now, since the others were all gone. He was the only one who had agreed to stick around and not died in the process, surely that counted for something?

Dead. Gone. Taken away.

My mind screamed at me that it wasn't yet ready to deal with all of this. I leaned over and brought my lips close to my companion's ear.

"I need a drink," I told him in a whisper. Next thing I knew, my body had slumped fully against his, and his shoulder was soft enough to make an acceptable pillow, and, gods, I really was beyond tired.

* * *

I suppose I should have been thankful. But I wasn't. Not by a long shot.

I had this tendency to deal with things by curling into a ball, hiding under a suitable blanket and waiting for it to all go away. The past year, so different from the sheltered time before it, had rid me of this unfortunate habit – mostly. Instead, whenever I felt like I really couldn't take things anymore, whenever I felt ready to cry my eyes out about my hopeless situation and the bastard whose fault it all was, Imoen had been there. We'd sat together, she'd sung for me and I'd attempt to hum along and botched up the melody.

I'm not sure why that little ritual had always worked in allowing me to get a grip of myself again, but there you have it. She had been my best friend for a reason, leaning on me as much as I had leaned on her. But Imoen wasn't there now, and that meant I was hopelessly out of balance. I'd been curled under my blankets, shutting away the truths of all that had happened, and I'd been happy in my little blanket cave right up until the point where Yoshimo had yanked those warm, comforting blankets away from me.

And I was full of sudden, boiling hatred for that alone.

"This is _my_ room," he pointed out before I could even get the first of the acidic words I'd been about to spit at him out of my mouth.

"Oh."

And then I remembered that he wasn't the same as Imoen, or even Jaheira, or Khalid for that matter. I barely knew him. It wasn't right for me to expect anything of him. It wasn't my right to lean on him and to expect him to help me out of this dark, dark emotional hole I seemed to have pitched myself into headfirst.

But yet, he was attempting to help me out, and I should probably be thankful for it.

That realization hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was not pleasant. But it also did something else that sorely needed to happen.

It put me into full damage control mode.

Friends had died, yes, but not all of them. Imoen was gone, but there was a chance to get her back, and in order to do that, I had better get my shit together.

I rolled myself out of bed and inelegantly managed to get my feet on the floor before I inflicted even more bruises on myself. Moving still hurt like a bitch, but I didn't allow the pain to get to me. My mind had, miraculously, managed to regain some of its focus.

"Your… clothes," Yoshimo pointed out, mercifully trailing off there without finishing the sentence.

I looked down at my body and fingered the rags I was wearing. They'd been through several battles in addition to torture, sewers and me passing out in them the night before. Now, it appeared as though they might fall apart on me if anyone so much as looked at them the wrong way. Last night I had been too tired and in too much pain to give a fuck about how I looked, but in the light of the new day, I realized that leaving Yoshimo's room in this ensemble probably wasn't such a good idea. Since I no longer had any money, this did present something of a problem.

"Um," I said, embarrassed that I had to ask him for a favor yet again.

He threw something at me. My reflexes were not up to the challenge and the garment landed squarely on my head.

"Gee, thanks." I reached for it and held it out in front of me. It was a shirt, or rather a short tunic, made out of fairly cheap silk, clearly a woman's garment, looking to be close enough to my size. "Where'd you get that?"

He was tactful enough not to answer out loud, but he did raise an eyebrow and looked pointedly at the bed I'd just vacated. I wasn't entirely certain whether there was any smugness on his face. His Kara-Turan features were trickier to read than most.

"Right." I cleared my throat and began to dress myself.

* * *

"Thank you. This was a good idea."

It really had been. My mind, even though it had snapped out of its grieved, panicked state for the time being, had been a mess. Before doing much of anything else, Yoshimo had led me to the graveyard, of all places.

It had been the right thing.

The temple district was busy, bustling with people and acolytes shouting glory, and that was not what I needed right now.

I needed a quiet moment to properly say goodbye.

Goodbye to the man on whom I had always depended from protection, Jaheira's quiet shadow. Khalid had been loyal to the last, intent on fulfilling the promise he had given to my foster father so long ago. I would serve his memory best by guarding my own life like he had guarded it.

Maybe one day, Jaheira would be willing to accompany me again, but I knew that at the moment, the road held too many memories for her. That was why she had left, and I was not cruel enough to try and get her to stay.

The day was deceptively beautiful. Birds were singing on the crypts' roofs, the trees were weaving elegantly in the breeze, and the sun's rays were warm on my skin. There wasn't a soul in sight apart from Yoshimo and me, and I appreciated the peace and quiet. Rising from my spot of contemplation, I gave my companion a nod.

"Let's be on our way."

I hadn't taken three steps when I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and the peace I'd felt for a few precious moments shattered like the fragile thing it had been when I turned and stared into the face of one of the people I had least wanted to ever see again.

"You. _You!_"


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Lo and behold, there is an update. I came back to this because my muse was being a complete tart about Rain and Lightning. Maybe this little chapter will help appease her._

* * *

"Me," he agreed calmly.

I spent several valuable seconds considering whether it was either completely inappropriate, or very, _very_ appropriate to kill someone in the graveyard. But still, it was so serenely peaceful here, even if I didn't feel the same peace inside, and I would have hated to mar the perfection.

So I would have settled for him to get the hells out of my sight and die completely by accident somewhere in the streets of Athkatla. I was feeling benevolent.

But he just had to open his mouth, and to top it all, point out something completely obvious.

"You seem to have fallen on hard times since we last met."

"No kidding," I snapped, self conscious because I was still wearing that damned cheap looking tunic originally belonging to one of Yoshimo's former flames. Fate apparently just didn't have anything better to do than to have me running into an old enemy out to end my life while I was wearing silk embroidered with a jaunty flower pattern.

Except that he wasn't, apparently, out to end my life. Not yet, anyway.

Deep breath. In. Out.

Keeping my composure was infinitely difficult. I was hanging on by a single thread anyway because of the events of the past few days. My breath wanted to hitch with barely suppressed panic. My hands were itching to curl into fists.

"Last time we met, I cleaved your head clean off your shoulders," I pointed out when the obvious finally occurred to me.

If he was even slightly disconcerted by that mental image, he didn't show it. Yoshimo, meanwhile, was looking mildly intrigued.

"You know this man?"

"Unfortunately," I answered.

I silently refused to elaborate. How could I, without diving into way too many hours worth of storytelling? And, even worse, without admitting that apparently, the people I had killed didn't even have the decency to stay dead nowadays. Life seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

The man in question took his sweet time explaining.

"You did kill me," he agreed with blithe indifference. "But it just so happens I've been dead a good-" He tilted his head and seemed to count silently. "-two dozen times. And it's oft saved my life."

It took me a moment to realize what he was getting at.

"Coward," I accused him then.

Once again, he refused to be bothered in the slightest.

"Perhaps," he agreed. "Though I would prefer 'prudent'."

"Well, prudent or not, it doesn't explain what in the nine stinking hells you're doing here."

"I tracked you down," he said after a moment's pause, "to make you an offer."

I very desperately desired to tell him where he could shove his offer, but my tongue didn't seem to want to cooperate. I realized with some regret that it would have been disrespectful to use such strong language in the place where the dead were laid to rest, anyway.

"What kind of offer?" I heard myself ask, and wondered just when my good sense had taken a dive out of some conveniently open window.

* * *

I was staring at the wall, musing about what exactly I had done to deserve my life going down the drain like it had.

The bard by the fireplace was playing some mournful tune that fit my mood better than I cared to admit. I'd spent the past half hour or so thinking, remembering and regretting, and my treacherous mind seemed content to replay the events leading me to this time and place over and over for my viewing pleasure.

I'd failed. Completely and utterly failed, to keep my friends around, to protect Imoen and, most recently, to retain even a shred of my dignity.

Staring at the offender, I wondered what sort of devil's bargain I had made. It had all sounded logical enough back in the graveyard, really, enough to sway me to consider it. We both knew that strength lay in numbers; he needed that strength and so did I. Simple as that.

The thought made me morose. I didn't want to admit that he was useful, not to him, not to myself. There was something about teaming up with former enemies that made me feel pathetic. I shouldn't need him and yet I did. The slavers we had ran into in one of the back alleys of Athkatla not too long after leaving the graveyard had proved that. They had outnumbered us, and I had severe doubts as to whether Yoshimo and me alone could have taken them on and won.

But _he_ had raised his weapon alongside me as though he'd done it for years, finely tempered steel gleaming in the sunlight, and he had casually cast a mage armor and a fire shield and thrown himself into combat.

As though we were allies. As though this was no big deal.

But it was a big deal alright. It had been the first time we'd entered a battlefield on the same side, and my mind still spewed bile at the idea.

Well, fuck it. I could bitch and moan however much I liked for all the good it did me. Fact was that my situation could barely have been worse, that I didn't have a damn choice, and therefore I had better get used to this newest development if I ever wanted to be in a position to find Imoen.

I _needed_ that help.

The bard plucking his lute had apparently reached the end of his song and underlined that fact by staring mournfully into the fire. I resolutely put my feet on the ground and pushed myself out of my chair.

I had to talk tactics with him eventually. Might as well get it over with.

My feet carried me over to where he was sitting. He was alone, one hand loosely holding his drink, the other relaxed but close to his weapon. I still found it hard to look at him without wanting to beat his face to a bloody pulp with one of my hammers. He'd done so much wrong to me, and yet he was sitting here like it was all no big fucking deal. Like his conscience was clear as could be. It was absolutely maddening.

His name was even harder to get across my lips. Murderer, I wanted to call him. Monster.

"Angelo," I forced out instead, eventually. He raised one eyebrow.

"Yes chief?"

I'd asked him not to call me that. Repeatedly. And it was only the first night. If he kept this up, things were going to get very ugly very, very soon.

I clenched my teeth and took yet another long, deep breath to keep myself calm before I opened my mouth.

"You got your book? We need to talk spells."


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: In case you hadn't noticed yet or don't know the mod, Angelo is brought into the game through the talents of Incanto (Sister Vigilante) and Kulyok. Since he features rather prominently so far, this seemed an appropriate spot to mention that. I hope I can do him, and the rest of the cast, justice. _

* * *

I should have known better, but because I'm presumably a little nuts, I didn't. Not until the first assassin showed up.

We were in the middle of a rather one-sided argument that kept the patrons of the Copper Coronet properly entertained. Angelo on one side of the table, making a face. Me on the other side of the table, glaring at him. Yoshimo off to the right, running his fingers through the bit of facial hair he had and trying like hells to stay out of the line of fire. And to my left, the unfortunate and rather clueless girl who had unwittingly started the argument.

"But…" Angelo began again.

"No." I said.

"If you just…"

"Shut it."

He was irritated, and it showed among others in the slight throbbing of the vein running along the side of his throat. I'd learned to read him well enough by now to know this. He hated it when I shut him down without even letting him finish his sentence. Anyone would. Of course, that was why I did it. I won't pretend that it had anything to do with leadership, hells no. It was just me getting back at him a little for existing.

"We don't even…"

"Not interested."

A finger tapped me on the shoulder, very insistently and very, very harshly. After the second tap I knew there was going to be a bruise. It was a rude thing to do, so I tried to brush it away, but it refused and kept on going, and that threw me off enough for Angelo to get a full sentence out.

"It's bad idea that's going to get us all killed, Chief, and you know that damn well."

Then he caught sight of whoever was standing behind me, and went rather still, and maybe even a little pale.

I turned and looked into the face of what had to be one of the ugliest creatures to walk on Faerun. With hands the size of bucklers.

"Is one of you," the creature asked, now that it had my attention, and wrinkled his forehead in an apparent effort at concentration. "An-gel-low Dow-sahhhn?"

I considered this for a moment. It wasn't my place to answer, however, so I gave Angelo a pointed look.

"I see no need," he said petulantly, crossing his arms before his chest, "to answer such an illiterate query."

Idiot.

The big, slobbering head turned to face him, and I wisely inched out of the way.

"You look kinda like him," the brute said slowly, while squinting down at him. "I think you is him."

Angelo looked at me, pleading silently. He had that look down pretty well.

I gave him a look right back, mine an angry narrowing of the eyes that translated fairly accurately to mean "Fuck off".

The brute had no respect for our subtle nonverbal communication skills and brought a club down onto the table, smashing it into way too many pieces. We all dived away. Patrons scattered.

I took covered beneath yet another table, which, in retrospect, wasn't such a smart idea considering what had happened to the first table. Angelo rolled sideways and crawled the rest of the way through the wreckage to join me.

"Just help me kill that thing, chief," he asked.

I wasn't having it. "He's _your_ assassin,"

"He isn't _my_ assassin. If he were, I'd make him wear a muzzle and a leash and train him to roll over for treats."

"Nevertheless, your problem."

"Yes, but, ah…" Angelo shrugged apologetically. "He doesn't seem to be able to grasp the concept of killing me and leaving my associates – that's you - alive. He may have even gotten instructions to…"

I cursed at him, very obnoxiously.

"Sorry chief," he said, though he didn't look sorry in the slightest.

My eyes caught movement overhead. The brute was swinging his club our way, so once more we both dived away. A moment later I was showered by wooden debris. A particularly large piece hit me in the small of the back and fucking hell, it hurt.

I threw myself around and shot a magic missile at him. Angelo, who had somehow managed to make it into relative safety behind Yoshimo, followed suit, and a third spell was sent off from somewhere in the far corner of the tap room.

Several bolts of pure arcane energy sank into the brute's chest, and he did not even blink.

"Oh, fuck," I said, when the slobbering creature gave me a deeply offended look and then stomped towards me through the remains of the two tables, club raised.

I briefly considered cursing the hells out of Angelo with what might have been my last breath, but then I decided that it would probably be better spent on raising my defenses. Just as flames sprung up around me, the brute brought down his club, and I tried and failed to evade it.

It clipped the back of my shoulder and I felt as though my arm had been torn clean off. I crashed to the ground, feeling only pain. Things went black for a moment.

Then everything blinked back into existence and it occurred to me to wonder why I wasn't dead yet. Then I forgot about that again and tried to check whether my arm was, in fact, still attached.

"Good going, chief." That was Angelo's voice. "I got him with an acid arrow to the face while you kept him distracted."

I heard howling and trampling in the distance and assumed that it was the brute. I tried not to imagine how much property damage he was causing.

"Sometimes I really fucking hate you, Dosan." I said.

"Yes, well…" Angelo, looking for a comeback, awkwardly patted my good arm. If it wouldn't have hurt to move I might have considered sinking my teeth into his hand out of principle.

Then again, it occurred to me, there was no way to be certain just where Angelo's hands had been during the past several days, nor when he had last washed them. Maybe me not being able to move wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"And the girl is coming with us," I said, because it was the only thing coming to my mind that I knew would annoy him.

"You're delusional with pain," he told me.

"Remind me to make sure you know what that feels like some time. Anyway, Nalia just helped save your ass, in case you didn't notice, and it seems I'll be needing all the help I can get with that. So she's coming with."

"That's one of your larger mistakes so far, you know."

"And you should be glad I keep making them, because otherwise you wouldn't be here."

I knew he was grinning, even while I was eating floorboards. That bastard.

"Good point, chief."

I realized, while I was waiting for Yoshimo to show up with the healing potions, that I was allowing Angelo to influence me far too much. I went out of my way at times to do something that I knew would piss him off, and as a result my decision-making suffered. I shouldn't have let him have that power over me.

But gods be damned, it was far too much fun to resist.


End file.
